Monday, December 7, 2009

IMAZ Spectator Report, part 9

Onsite sign up for IMAZ 2010 was scheduled for 7-9am. I arrived at 6:30 am, and the line was at least 100 people long. The most interesting thing was there were separate lines for volunteers and non volunteers, and all the volunteers were signed up first. So even though there were 100 people or so in line in front of me, it was moving quickly and I was able to sign up at about 7:30. When I left, the non volunteers that had lined up first, maybe an hour before I got there, still hadn't been allowed in, and the volunteer line had filled up with probably another 200 people.

And really, there are so many easy volunteer jobs, there is no reason not to do it. They were checking for wrist bands and T shirts, so you couldn't just say you had volunteered. And volunteering was a really fun thing.

The actual registration process was easy. They typed in your name off your driver's license and swiped your credit card for $577.50. And gave you a confirmation code to use to finish the registration online about two weeks later, which I've already done now. After all the on site registrations, they opened the online registration though active.com, and it sold out in 25 minutes. So from 7 am to about 11:25 am, the event producers made about $1.2 million dollars. Wow. And the race isn't for another 12 months. And that's not counting all the sponsorships- Ford, Avia, Tmobile, Gatorade, etc. And the merchandise. They had Ironman branded dog biscuits, and mouse pads, and cooking aprons. Really. So it is a big business, and apparently not affected by the recession at all.

So, the purpose of the weekend was done. It is official. I'm in for IMAZ 2010! Let the training begin, because I have a lot of work to do!

And the last section, things to learn and remember...

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